Indoor skiing in Shanghai

(sorry -no pictures - forgot the camera...)

On Saturday we went to the Indoor skiing in Shanghai. The place is really close to where we live, and we decided to give it a chance even though we read a lot of things about it- especially not too excited reviews. I thought that it's worth a try- especially coz I need the practice, since I've skied only 7 days in my life. We woke up on Saturday on a decent hour (10am) and went there. We walked in to a nice lobby, and payed a not very nice price (218RMB for an unlimited time ticket ~ 22 Euro). The price includes equipment and clothing (we brought our own clothes- I think it's better than using rented ones- but if you don't have any- it's a good compromise), we changed and went in. The boots we got were damp inside, and even though we changed them 3 times before we started- we couldn't find a pair that was totally dry. We walked in the skiing area and saw a little man-made hill, covered with artificial snow. It's not a high hill and the slope is not very steep- but for me it was enough to practice.
This place is a good example for the way Chinese ppl keep maintenance: they don't. I'll be surprised if there's such a word in Chinese at all. In the pictures outside the place it looks so nice and clean, and taken care of- but no! Inside it's a big hill of instant China. The nice screens that covered the ugliness on the "back stage" were gone. Meaning the big metal poles holding the huge hanger, and the terrible ground next to the slope (covered with wet carton boards), were all shown to our delight, while we were goin up on the very old, annoying and slow (about 300m in more than 5 minutes) lift you put between your legs to drag you up. On the way up at some points there was no snow on the trail, so my skies got stuck a few times, till I realized I better move my feet towards where there's snow... We actually asked one of the employees (inside there were far less employees than outside) to shovel some snow on the lift's trail, but the only answer we got was: "we do it only in the evening" (we're still not sure the guy totally understood what we said). How stupid is that? So for the rest of the time it was to be left alone like that. What else was wrong there? well- they had 2 lifts, but one wasn't working, and to get the escalator that takes you to the lift- you have to walk a mile in the snow. Again- maintenance!!! and how inefficient.
The amount of Chinese ppl trying to ski but falling on their behinds was unbelievable. They ski in a straight line down hill, till they fall in a very amusing way. I thought that in Israel there were a lot of ppl that didn't like to ask for help, coz they're too much of a macho. But no. Here, for totally different reasons (well maybe it is about "losing face" which is pretty much the same reason, and maybe it's just because they're stupid) it seems that they just take some boots, take some skies, put them on (usually not the right way) and go up hill. Most of them get stuck in the middle - standing there like zombies waiting for the Messiah (Rob would say they haven't noticed he already came ... ha ha - makes me laugh every time...) blocking the way for the 10 out of 500 ppl that are actually skiing down normally from up hill (2 of them were us, the rest either foreigners or some "cool" young Chinese snow-boarders that were pretty good).
I felt just like in a video game- "avoid the Chinese ppl". It was good practice- maybe next time I'll feel confident enough to ski between trees...
To sum things up- I'm glad we went, for me it was good, this way when we go skiing in February I hope I'll waste less time on the vacation trying to remember what to do, and gaining my confidence back (it takes a few hours...). I would recommend for ppl who really want to ski and are not gonna have a chance to do anywhere - to go there, but be aware of the price, and don't expect much of the place itself.